Missed
by carpetfibers
Summary: "He is not an island, and she promises such better shores." HGRL. Now complete.
1. One

_A/N: This story is completed in full and will be updated daily until complete. Please read and review- and hopefully, enjoy._

_Disclaimer: All JKR's. _

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

* * *

-_one_-

A DOUBLE image imposes itself as the years pass; a sweet bitterness overtakes him when he dives deep into his memories and sees her there, a blurry overlapping of child and girl, teenager and woman. Dimorphous, she is still only a face, barely freckled cheeks and forever cautious eyes. More clever than most, far too hesitant in her confidence- he loathes the moment when he begins to see more than just school robes and a waving hand.

Even beyond the classroom, on nights huddled in a darkened kitchen surrounded by the frenzied murmurs of the Order, he grows aware of her waiting on the stair. She is the woman-child then, an ugly thing for a man who already knows the depth of his self-disgust. Others would blame the beast in him, the monthly curse, but that creature has no conscious thought beyond hunger and hunt. It doesn't know beauty or despair. It doesn't suffer guilt or pangs of conscience.

Remus Lupin knows that it's the man, the human in him that first notices that Hermione Granger is no longer the bodiless figure of a former student.

* * *

_-one-_

* * *

"The potatoes please, Professor," Hermione asks of him, all too quietly, hands ready to receive.

He thinks to correct her; his teaching days were as short-lived as any other job before, and now he no longer feels like passing along his learned wisdom. It seems false to believe anything might save them. Chance and luck are better tools, and he has none of that.

Instead, he smiles, feeling the dullness of it, an aching white-washed plainness that saturates all his attempts at the day-to-day. She smiles in return, and when he hands her the plate, the steam climbing above it, his fingers meet the smooth expanse of her wrist. A half throb of her pulse traces its way through his arm and past his heart, and the twist he feels there digs deeply, stabs wretchedly.

He is undone so very easily. It's the most unconscious of touches, the most mundane of circumstances, this dining ritual of passing and receiving. But that she does not grimace, that she does not recoil- The brief flash of life that flits its way into his consciousness unwinds him completely, and the sinking that crushes him is the realization she gives him:

He is not an island, and she promises such better shores.

-_one_-


	2. Two

_A/N: This story is completed in full and will be updated daily until complete. Please read and review- and hopefully, enjoy._

_Disclaimer: All JKR's. _

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

-_two_-

The bookcase is ancient, and she loves to lean her forehead against it, breathing in the age and history that rests there, caught in the wood. Hermione is not hiding; she is not avoiding anyone. They- friends and adults, the Order members and those few that fall in between- assume that because she chooses a library over extended dinner conversation, that surely she is running away.

She remembers how Sirius would watch her when she read, a curious expression of regret and humor always twitching at his lips. He explained to her once, last summer, that watching her read was like watching a play. He needn't know a single word on the page, her face told the entire story. She reminded him, he said, of someone long since dead.

"No wonder Harry loves you," Sirius told her, "if he only knew how like his mother you really are."

But Hermione is not Lily Potter; she is not as brittle, and she forgives far too easily the temperamental slights her friends give her. She doesn't fold away and forge something new when her heart breaks again and again. Hermione's thoughts dwell too often in the past, and Lily Evans in birth only ever strove forward.

The bookcase smells of the past, hints of incense and magic. She can imagine generations of Blacks having practiced their first spells beneath it, their same fingers sliding along the books that she all too reverently opens and consumes. Twice now she has looked up from a book and expected to see him there, Sirius, with that expression of tempered fear and gratitude.

Hermione looks up again now, the hand that draws back her hair for the short glance pausing in its motion. The last true Marauder, his kind face lined still in grief and weariness, sits in his friend's chair, his lips pulled in much that same expression of something bottled tight and hard. She wants to say the right words, to offer some amount of comfort.

"I'm sorry, Professor," is all she can manage. "So very sorry."

He stands too quickly for her to notice, and all at once he is very still and close. His hand passes over her brow, never touching, and his fingers hover near her cheek. "Please," he says in a voice at once mild and controlled, "it's Remus. Just- Remus."

Hermione doesn't understand the pull that begins beneath her heart then, the awful tug that brings heavy tears to her eyes later that night once she's silently tucked away in her bed. She cannot bring herself to say his name, and yet- she mouths the letters, kisses around the sounds. It is not a crush, and it is not love.

She only knows that it is painful, and she does not visit the bookcase again.

* * *

_-two-_

* * *

That summer after Sirius, that summer spent sleeping under overpasses and crouching in the darkness of night; that summer toiled over in the biting, snarling politics of those who shared his curse- that summer, Remus is torn to pieces three times, his body bent and re-shaped in the likeness of a violent other. The third time, he considers skipping the potion and letting his mind drift away from him.

His attempts to draw an alliance fail, as expected. That they let him slink away, bloodied but not terribly, is as far as they'll go. He can't blame them. The very people that now request their help and aid are the self-same who would see them cast from the land, hunted down and de-fanged, no better than feral strays. He tried to remind them that they are also wizards and witches who but for a breaking of skin and blending of bloods are the same as anyone. But the moon pulls, their mutually shared time of pain and exhilaration rushing toward them all. And while they stand, readied to howl and run, he swallows from the vial in his pocket and feels the isolation creep over him.

The crackling stretch of his flesh is a welcomed relief.

_-two-_


	3. Three

_A/N: Please read and review- and hopefully, enjoy._

_Disclaimer: All JKR's. _

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

-_three_-

Hermione doesn't regret throwing the spell, she relishes the birds in their angry dives, able to demonstrate all that she feels deep beneath her breast. She can understand the confusion, they argue more than make-up, but the tension is real at least. And she craves the distraction of it, the wonderful normalcy of watching Ron's lips and pretending at how'd they feel against her own.

She can be a girl then, the average sort that she once intended to be.

She doesn't imagine herself in love, and she doesn't have the self-assurance to consider the emotions purely lust. Hermione knows she's the kind of girl who considers the comfort and sturdiness of a pair of shoes before the appearance. She shops for quills instead of dresses, and the magazines that arrive at her breakfast table once a month are missing the sort of glossy, winking pictures that adorn so many others.

She writes out plans for new defense spells on napkins, and once she scrawls out an algorithm for an arithmantic prediction on the bathroom mirror, hearing none of the mirror's shocked protests. She's meant to blow kisses and giggles in hallways; she's supposed to twitter notes back and forth in class. Newly seventeen, and surely she's too young to outline her will.

But Ron doesn't understand, and when she grows quiet and solemn, she reminds him too easily of all that he might wish to forget. He, still, is young and aching for distraction.

"He doesn't mean it," Harry tells her. "It's only a passing thing."

Hermione wants to forgive them both for being boys and teenagers and incapable of understanding a girl's heart- but it's her heart, and they should know it better than most. "Tell me," she says, a few nights later braced against the warmth of the common room hearth, "if Ron wasn't here, would we ever have been friends?"

Harry doesn't answer. The question is a cruel one, and she chose it purposely. When she was a child, her world was made up of only her; she didn't know friends until Hogwarts. She didn't know friendship, or the kind of fear that its loss fosters. There are times when Hermione Granger, responsible and forever too empathetic, considers being alone again. Solitude has its enticements, its freedoms.

She was never afraid when she was alone. And now, as Harry sits unable to answer, she swallows the sob that hobbles in her throat. She does not know who the question is more cruel to: the one who cannot reply, or the one who's always known the answer.

"It's doesn't matter," she tells him, giving in to the compassion that always hinders her. "We're friends now, after all."

Ron joins them later, and while she bristles to shout and stomp and act out all of the gloriously average juvenile tempers that strike her when he nears, she sets it aside, labeling the box for later use. They sit quietly, the fire spreading its warmth between them.

The fear is awful for her, to consider losing what she has now. It would be better, Hermione tells herself, if she had never known this kind of love, this kind of friendship. It would be safer to have stayed alone.

* * *

_-three-_

* * *

A clever someone connects the dots incorrectly, and soon the Order's gossips whisper of love unrequited and a changed Patronus. They assume it's meant for him, and he balks at the stupidity of it. How little they understand, how desperate for distraction they must all be. Anyone with eyes can see the difference between a wolf and a dog.

But Remus is the only one who knows, because he is the only one she's ever told. "Is it wrong?" she asks him on a foggy morning, a year before, her hair spotted with pink and gold as the sun peaks hesitantly through overhead, "Am I wrong to love him?"

He reassures her of leniency with bloodlines, and encourages her despite age and experience. He sees in the younger woman, with a silly name and a clumsy carefree manner, a chance for Sirius to be happy. He thinks, when he pushes Tonks toward his best friend, that in this, perhaps those long years imprisoned might become less.

Sirius Black is dead now, and Nymphadora Tonks mourns as a never-wife and untouched lover. Drab, drained, and without any color, she wilts as he watches in sympathy from the shadows. The whispering rumors help not at all.

"Molly Weasley thinks it's you," she tells him one night, when the sky is filled with heavy stars and a waning moon. He watches as he does every night; he is inconsequential beneath it. "She told me to stop waiting around and make a move."

Nymphadora Tonks laughs like she wishes to cry, and she grips his hand tightly. "Should I? Would it makes things better?"

Remus considers her face, the simple features and upturned nose. Sadness douses all of it, and when another's features crosses his mind- when another's hand and pulse flits to the surface- he pauses. "I never thought it was wrong, you loving Sirius."

She kisses him, tasting of chocolate and something bitter. He sighs into it and considers her question again. _Would it make things better?_

Oh but he is selfish, he realizes, leaning into the kiss and relishing the warmth of her lips. This, at least, is allowed. And with this, with her, this Nymphadora Tonks, with her loathed first name and broken heart, he might no longer feel lonely.

"We can try," he tells her.

_-three-_


	4. Four

_A/N: Updated daily until finished. Please read and review. Thanks!_

_Disclaimer: All JKR's. _

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

* * *

_-four-_

The hallway air strikes too coolly against her bare arms. She scrubs at her mouth, hating the ghostly feel of McLaggen's lips. Her cheeks remain dry, although her eyes threaten otherwise. She wonders if every party will end like this, with her standing alone in a hallway, and Ron unaware as always.

She blinks rapidly, fighting the growing dampness. Hermione doesn't know why she's crying; she knows she doesn't love him. Her dress, though- she had thought that perhaps, if he saw her in it, he might think her pretty. Just a bit.

She pauses by the twin gargoyles, the soft _snit_ of the descending stairs dislodging themselves warns her of an incoming interruption. Hurriedly, she wipes again at her eyes and inhales deeply, readying the proper smile to ward off questions or conversation.

She recognizes the shoes first and only barely contains the throb that pushes once again at her eyes, blurring her gaze.

"Hermione?"

She doesn't know when his voice became so important, so calming. She wants to blame the bookcase and the non-touch of his hands. She wants to explain the feeling on girlish silliness and reminds herself of Lockhart and fanciful notions. "Professor, I- I didn't know you were visiting."

He flinches at her words, and she bites at her cheek. She can't say it, despite her mouth knowing the shape and feel of his name so very intimately. "Just a brief visit; the Headmaster is gathering memories and needed one or two of mine."

Hermione wonders what he would look like in blue; she hates the sodden brown and grey that drags at his shoulders, the robe more dust than cloth. "I see."

He follows her back to the common room, leads her up to the Fat Lady's portrait, and waits as she avoids his gaze. She wishes she had worn a different dress, she wishes she had chosen a different color. She feels silly and young, and finally, she lifts her eyes properly. He holds her there, silent words trapped on his tightly held lips.

"Will you be at the Burrow for Christmas?" she asks.

He speaks slowly, as if measuring the syllables. "No, I have other plans."

She hesitates and then continues, "More Order missions?"

He lifts his hand, repeating his gesture from the summer, as if to touch her hair. An expression that could only be wistfulness eases some of the weariness from him, and in it she can see a reminder of the man he was twenty years before.

"You look lovely, Hermione," he tells her. And she knows that he means it; she hears the words he doesn't say, a strange repeat of the blissful ache that sits in her stomach, warming her.

"Re-" she begins to say, unable to look away from the sudden glassiness that douses his eyes.

"It's not for the Order," he interrupts, lips twisting in a smile that says nothing of happiness or pleasure. "I'll be away, on honeymoon."

Hermione doesn't cry, not then and not later.

* * *

_-four-_

* * *

Dora slides into a different disguise each time she comes to his bed; each night she leaves with an internal notation. He prefers her skin sun-kissed, tawny like a summer spent on a foreign coast, with beaches teeming with boys selling coconut halves and shouts of barely dressed children. She imagines swimming there, her skin bared to the open sky above. Pure water, cold and waveless, but clear to the very depths. She pictures skin that speaks of floating, weightless across the sea, salt on her tongue and sand in her hair.

She learns he cannot resist the smudge of a beauty mark on her shoulder; he cannot ignore the way her skin flaunts this perfected imperfection. His lips find the mark, treasuring its shape and worshiping at an altar that she knows is meant for another. Dora knows that her marriage is one of solace, of mutual compassion. She doesn't mind the guessing game that she plays, the trial and error to discover what shape he truly desires.

He loses himself in her the night she wears her hair in tangles, curls less like springs and more like coils of soft capture. His hands pull and weave, and she feels the difference in his kisses, in his desperate touches. He doesn't cry out a name, he is too kind to let himself truly use her. But Dora wishes he would, wishes she could somehow give to him what he gives to her each day that he lets her love a man months-now dead.

Brown eyes, a straight nose. Narrowed chin and slender waist. Shy of average height. Thinner lips, but generous in width and tender in feeling. The night he does finally cry out, he does finally take from her what she's wanted so long to give, he still does not utter a name.

But Dora recognizes the face that greets her in the mirror, and the sadness she feels is not for herself.

_-four-_


	5. Five

_A/N: Please read and review. Thanks!_

_Disclaimer: None is mine; all JKR's._

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

* * *

_-five-_

Hermione knows that panic leads to death. She's known this as fact since before Hogwarts, since before an owl came and explained the strange accidents that had followed her all her life. She's known the truth of what promises survival since she was three-years-old and her magic protected her for the first time.

An electric blanket had been left plugged in too long, her mother would later explain, when Hermione was older and knew the words to ask the right sort of questions. Her grandmother often forgot simple things like turning off the stove, or locking the front door. Her grandmother was only babysitting because the office had had an emergency, and, as her mother always promised, Hermione's mother had no other choice.

The fire took over the front room within seconds, the smoke clouded the council flat thickly. Her grandmother struck at the back windows, fighting with painted-over seams, hacking coughs and fruitless words sucking up the oxygen with every high-pitched syllable. Hermione should have been crying, too, like any other child her age would have.

The smoke stung her eyes and her ears rang with the desperate shouts her grandmother repeated, over and over. Yet, she felt only calm. Flames licked at the doorway, and her grandmother's cries grew weaker, the fists pounding at the window faltering. When her grandmother stopped moving altogether, Hermione felt no fear, no niggling sense of doom. The fire drew closer, and when it reached her pen, it stretched to surround her, to overwhelm her too.

She was found untouched, minutes later, when the sprinklers kicked on and the door was broken through, her mother explained. A miracle, everyone called it, that such a small child could survive such a horrible thing.

"There were only ashes left, dearest, just ashes and you," her mother had said, touching Hermione's hair and wiping at dry cheeks. "Your grandmother's love must have saved you. A miracle."

Hermione remembers differently. She remembers the blue flames that swept forth from her fingers, icicles of molten light clearing the air and leaving her unscathed.

"Panic kills," she warns herself years later, on a night when the school grounds are filled with the sounds of fear and curses. "Always calm, always ready," she says, with her fingers taut in their grip at her wand, her hair, as it always is, a distraction over her eyes. "I will not die."

The calm settles her, and when she strikes out with her blue flames, no one calls it a miracle. It is magic, _her_ magic, and she survives because of it.

* * *

_-five-_

* * *

The wedding is happier than his own had been, and while his wife shows no sign of regret or discontent, he questions again whether his agreement to their chosen method of consolation was a cruelty. His wife is young, and Remus has felt ancient all his life. He watches the dancers, feeling the warmth of their laughter wash over him. The sun sits too brightly overhead, and the urge to run beneath it, tear off his clothes and drown in the heat and glory of it calls and entices.

But there is brightness here, too, beneath the awning; Hermione dances clumsily, but with open pleasure. Her dress, a color still less than the whole that is her, draws out her eyes. She is lovely, again, and it doesn't matter that he thinks it every time he sees her. It doesn't matter that even though he's decided otherwise and sits with a wedding band caught on his finger, he still longs for the _other_, for the _something_ that seeing her reminds him of.

"Professor, won't you dance with me?" She smiles, her hand outstretched, and it's Dora who pushes him forward, drawing his hand into hers. The thread of that pulse flashes through him, and a thousand impossible memories threaten to devour him.

He can imagine their kitchen, something simple, and her reading at the table while he stands at the stove. A picnic in a park, with storm clouds threatening rain and thunder, and her laughing as he kisses her neck. A late night walk, her hand in his, and the moon is full, but he is unbroken and in love-

He pulls away from her touch, the thread of her leaving him bereft. "I'm not very good, I'm sorry. I think Ron might be available, though."

Remus ignores the way she watches him, a still figure trapped in the movement of so many, and returns to his seat and wife.

"Oh Remus, it was just a dance." Dora greets him with too much understanding and a pity that drives him to anger. "What would it hurt?"

Everything and nothing. The world and the heavens, and perhaps that space in between. He fights the urge to hurt her, to say the words that would force her into silence. Just a name, a reference to kissing cousins and it would be enough. She would retreat to her side of the flat, to the room she's made into a shrine of her unrequited and unfulfilled half-life that _was_ and yet _wasn't_.

Remus looks at his wife, resplendent in ice-blue hair and eyes the color of a snow-storm. She is in true disguise today, surrounded by the festivities that aren't theirs to share. The anger leaves him. He lacks the heart to hurt her, not in the way that would help them both. He takes her hand instead, and feels the dig of unfamiliar metal against his fingers.

The ring is white-gold; it stings like silver.

_-five-_


	6. Six

_A/N: Please read and review. Two postings today since I was unable to last night. Enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: JKR's. All._

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

* * *

_-six-_

The air is cold, and it takes nearly fifteen minutes before she remembers her wand and casts the warming charm. That Harry does not notice speaks to the weight around his throat, and she prepares herself to take her turn. She is terrified of the locket, of the words it whispers to her heart. It does not threaten or tempt her with dangerous visions. Instead, it paints a picture of a would-be life, a might-have present.

It's cruel in the pleasure it gives her to forget, for a spare few minutes, that she is cold and lonely and hungry; when she wears the locket, she is in a kitchen painted in greens and yellows. The tablecloth, checkered and cheerful, is soft beneath her bare elbows; the heft in her hands comes from a thick text, generous in its word count and descriptions of things she cannot help but trap herself in. The locket is devious; it is not the kitchen with its warmth and bright sunshine that cuts to the quick.

It is the man who delivers a pan sizzling with steaming eggs, a napkin tucked at his waist. His eyes wrinkle with his smile, and when she opens her mouth for the first bite, it's his mouth she tastes, his kiss she dives into. She relishes, in the vision, the vainglorious impossibility of it. And when she returns to herself, so many minutes or seconds later, it is cold forest and grey skies that meet her.

Hermione blames her tears then on homesickness and heavy feelings; Harry would not understand. And Ron- he barely notices the ground he walks on. His hours with the locket leave his eyes red and mouth dry. Twice he's tried to touch her, to take the things the lockets whispers he should have. She forgives him too easily, she thinks, but he is not himself. He is something less, something harder and looser, and each moment spent with the horcrux kills him a little more.

She wonders what sort of future the locket paints for him that leaves him so desperate. Are they in love there, with two children and family dinners and holidays spent running in the snow? Does he feel warmth there, in the false images the locket shows him?

Ron reaches for the locket, his hand shaking, and Hermione steps in his stead. "You deserve a rest," she tells him, careful to not touch him. She smiles instead, readying herself. "I'm feeling okay today, it won't bother me as much."

Harry knows she's lying, she can tell, but Ron is too grateful, too exhausted, and so Harry hands her the locket. His gaze speaks silent warnings. Her smile widens, something of grit and daring in the expression. Her fingers close over the silver clasp, the heaviness of the metal and its fragmented soul both delicious and loathsome.

"Really, I'll be fine," she lies again and trudges forward, her wand once more pointing north, toward the darker grey that is the future. When the locket begins its dream-weaving, she doesn't fight it.

_He _is there, and she loves the feeling of it.

* * *

_-six-_

* * *

When Remus leaves, the hours turning into days and weeks, the rumors spread that he hides in shame because of their future child and the possible curse he gave it. The story is that he hides in the shadows, in clothes increasingly likes rags and a beard that scratches and pesters and cloaks him in its haggard display- the story is that he hides there because he had never meant for a child.

Only Dora, his wife and bride, knows the truth of it. As the baby grows inside of her, as her parents watch her in patient silence, she hides the truth tightly in her heart of hearts. She is too grateful, too enraptured with the child that gains in shape and dimension each second to mind his absence. After all, it is she who tricked him, who used that great weakness of his to get this child that dances in her belly.

And so she forgives his desertion, trusting that his self-hatred is too absolute to truly leave her behind. Remus Lupin is a better man than he thinks himself to be; and Dora knows that one morning he will return, having forgiven her despite himself.

She clutches at her belly, tracing the stretch of skin that protects that dearest of heartbeats beneath it. She prays that this child of hers will carry the ability to transform as well, to take on the face of any other. Is it selfish to hope that this child might adopt dark eyes and black hair? That, in this child, she might see the man she loved and lost?

She forgives her husband his weakness and promises herself a simple thing: When the child is born, when the war is over, she'll free him from this contract of mutually-born loathing. The world might crumble around her, the evening radio carrying with it news of death and loss and desperate hope; the world might dissolve around her, and Dora might cry with it.

But she carries this precious thing within her now, and for the first time since Sirius died, she feels something other than loss. Remus has no choice; he can only forgive her. The baby kicks, and she smiles.

_-six-_


	7. Seven

_A/N: As always, please read and review. I'm eager for feedback. For those lone three of you who have- thank you very much._

_Disclaimer: JKR's._

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

* * *

_-seven-_

Remus cannot listen to it a moment longer, the rage beneath his skin boiling to a level that demands action. Still, he stays, propped against the peeling wall, the stone floor beneath his feet. Ron Weasley has been speaking for an hour; the count is two days and seven minutes since he left his friends alone in an anonymous wood.

"It- it _likes_ to lie," Ron tries to explain, his gaze fixed beyond the table that steadies him. "And even if you know it's a lie, it's a lie you're bound to believe, because it's also true. And I just- I _couldn't_. Not for another moment. You just don't understand- I had _to_."

Fleur murmurs soothing nothings, while Bill picks at the ice-box hinge. The silence is thick, and Remus studies the down-turned face before him. A young face- a face that will, with age and sharpness, shape into something attractive and compelling. He can imagine Hermione loving a face like that; he feels no guilt to see it twist with pained memory.

"It's not that I deserted them, that I ran way. It's not like that- I swear, it's _not_." Ron shudders again, his teeth chattering in the violence of it. He stares ahead, and again, he is seeing something other than the table before him. Remus watches as his fingers clutch in the air, and before Ron can continue, he understands.

He moves before he can think, before he can pause and remember the room and its occupants. He knocks the chair from beneath the teenager, pulls at the collar that surrounds the boy's neck, and in a harsh whisper that the room recoils from, he asks the one question- the only question that matters in all of the world in that second.

"Did you touch her?"

Ron makes no effort to struggle free; he hangs limply, his fingers loosely at his sides. He breathes in harsh, staccato inhalations. His pupils widen; Remus tightens his grip. "Did you hurt _her_? Did you?"

He must know; he can imagine it all too easily, picture the pathetic creature caught in his hands reaching out in the night, in the darkness that excuses transgression far too carelessly. He can imagine the shock and fear transforming her well-worn features into something awful and damaged. "Speak Ronald! _Did you hurt her?_"

"No!" Ron gasps, the shuddering overtaking him. "No, I didn't- I would _never_. . . not Hermione, never Hermione. . ." His eyes are too large, his gaze too unflinching. "But if I stayed, I might have. And so I had to leave- you have to believe me. I had to."

"Remus-" It is Dora who dares to intervene; her hand, the gentlest of touches on his arm, uncoils the black knot that clenches in his gut. He lets her lead him from the room, from the questioning eyes who can only guess at his anger, his motivations. She cradles him against her, the swell of her waist reminding him of all that stands in the balance.

The world is wretched, and he the worst of it.

* * *

_-seven-_

* * *

She stares without seeing, without feeling. The rain is listless and feeble, and the grave beneath it is too fresh and new to warrant such apathy. Hermione can feel the stretch of the letters on her skin, re-taste the blood that filled her mouth when she bit through her lip. The _Cruciatus_ described in her books is clinical and manageable; the _Cruciatus_ that still sets her nerves on end and her muscles in tight bundles of voiceless agony is less precise.

She is only hours older than before the Manor, but she feels the decades of age in her bones.

Distantly, somewhere behind the numbness that soaks her, she senses him waiting, hovering just beyond her reach. Hermione wonders which Bellatrix would hate more: that she is Muggleborn, or that she longs after a werewolf?

He approaches hesitantly when she doubles over, the laughter too much like sobs. "Hermione?"

She wipes at her cheeks, surprised by their dryness. Surely she had cried: Dobby is dead; she must cry. "I'm fine, Professor. It's- it's all right. I'll head back in a moment."

She listens to the rustling that indicates his nearing; she closes her eyes, breathing deeply. He is always warm, and no small part of her longs to take refuge in that heat, to bundle herself close and tight. "I think you should leave me alone."

"Is that really best?"

She turns to face him, her hands fisting involuntarily. She feels the newly scabbed over letters on her forearm break and blister with the gesture; the blood seeps through her sleeve. Hermione watches as he stares, his features for once open and honest. "What's the alternative?" she asks. "You draw me near, pat my back and promise everything will be fine? You know that's not an option."

He takes his time finding his words, carefully choosing the right phrasing and tone. "I know that you sent your parents away, Hermione, so if it helps you, perhaps you can think of me as someone like a father-"

The laugh that bursts from her is horrible, and her chest clenches as something too much like anger blossoms there. "Father? Are you mental? I could _never_." She does not touch him, but he staggers as if struck.

"If not parental, then maybe as a former teacher, you might consider confiding in me."

She considers her once professor, clad again in his drab and worn greys. Age and experience spot him too finely, their fingers have smudged the paint that is his skin and the inks that are his eyes. She longs to draw her hand over his cheeks and push back the too long hair that shadows his gaze. She can imagine the chapped dryness of his lips breaking beneath the warmth and wetness of her own. Hermione wonders if there's a god who still cares enough to condemn her for loving a married man; she wonders if a confession would absolve her or only drive the emotions deeper- to finally voice those dark, cherished feelings she holds so dearly.

"Do you have any chocolate?" she asks, relenting at last, and hating the weakness of it. The pure pleasurable jolt of something harsh and awful jumps through her when he offers the half eaten bar out to her. Carefully, and without leaving her gaze from his, she bites from it. His eyes flutter and his lips tighten.

The chocolate is bitter, but she tastes it as something sweet.

_-seven-_


	8. Eight

_A/N: This is a day late- sorry! Will double-post tomorrow; should be wrapping up very soon. Thanks again for the reviews! I know this particular pairing is an odd/rare one. But I couldn't really help myself._

_Disclaimer: JKR's; I'm only reading between the lines._

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

* * *

_-eight-_

He has a son now, he reminds himself. He has a son, a happy tiny creature that cannot move but to lift his arms and cry from lungs fully formed. He has a son who quiets only when he lifts him to his shoulder, his voice crooning soothing nonsense; a son who watches with eyes that shift from blue to grey to brown to pink to any color that reflects each emotion his tiny heart suffers from.

Remus reminds himself that he has a son now, and so he must live.

The curse glares red, and his shield cracks beneath it, splintering out pieces of the violence and hatred that stem from Dolohov's wand. He hears the high pitched laughter that is Bellatrix Lestrange; he hears his wife's angry shouts. Dolohov circles and the spell is not spoken, but spurned forward in a raging wave of green and death.

He has a son, Remus reminds himself as he sees his wife fall, her aunt, the victor, crowing and leaping in a frenzied rejoicing. It is not a full moon, but he feels his bones breaking and reforming, his jaw dislocating as his teeth grow and his eyes widen. Dolohov tries again, another curse, but it takes quicksilver and so much more than magic to stop a werewolf when he changes.

He was nine when he tasted human flesh for the first time; the morning after, when the body was found torn asunder and blood littered his basement floor in putrid pools, Remus could only touch his teeth and swallow shallowly. The taste that littered his mouth was warm and rich, like a heavy wine and the smoke of a dying fire. He was nine years old and still only a child when he realized that the rest of his life would be spent remembering this moment and wanting it to be repeated.

The curse is not that he becomes an animal; the curse is that he remembers.

Dolohov, Remus ensures, will have no such chance, and when he tears the deatheater's throat open and rips into his stomach, he is aware of each second. He is repulsed; he is surrounded in glory.

Bellatrix defends herself too ably, the hexes she throws all are ones that find their mark, but her throat, too, is easily ruined. He is more than a man, more than an animal; he is Beast and Vengeance, and the part of him that is a father and husband regains itself too late. The wounds that spill his remaining life spread too quickly across the stone floor.

He cradles Dora's pale face carefully between his broken hands, his lips kiss her gently. He begs forgiveness and understanding, and too late does he understand that she never judged him, or faulted him his absence of heart. "Our son," he whispers to her, "our poor son."

The blackness that finds him is imperfect; in it, he still dreams. Even in death, he dreams of Hermione. He should feel guilt that it is her face he sees and not his wife or son. But he is beyond feeling; he only wishes-

And he weeps when, hours later, he is still alive, a mediwitch pushing life-saving potions to his lips. He has a son now, he reminds himself, and now he is mother and father.

* * *

_-eight-_

* * *

Harry remembers the past weeks in a blur of dressrobes and flashing camera bulbs. The world's relief plays itself out in balls and celebrations and quiet funerals that no one mentions. He cannot endure another second of it, and when Hermione shares her plan with him, he is desperate for it.

"I want you to come," she tells him. "Stay, or visit. Whatever you need. No Ministry, no Daily Prophet- no one to touch your forehead or shake your hand."

The cottage is crumbling, a monument to neglect and age. The roof needs patching, the walls reforming, and two of the floorboards snap beneath her weight. Harry stands, wordless, as Hermione tests the kitchen sink and frowns at the brown water that spits reluctantly from the spouts. The once-garden desperately needs grooming, but she smiles when she spots a patch of healthy peppermint in the corner.

Hermione takes the cottage, paying far more than she ought to for the relic, and they spend their first night sleeping on the bare floorboards. He follows as she leads, with long walks to Hogsmeade to retrieve spare pieces of furniture. He relishes the aches in his legs, the sweat that lines his brow and gathers along his back. Nothing is there to remind him of before, and days pass spent bent to the floor, sandpaper in hand.

Hermione lives in the garden, her knees stained by the earth and her cheeks warmed by the sun. He makes no mention of her wand left discarded in the grass; she says nothing of the wand he leaves in a kitchen drawer. He wonders, as his palms harden from hours gripped in effort, if this is a natural reaction to the war's end. He wonders if magic is ruined for him now, with so much of it stained by death and pain.

His blood sings when he touches his wand, but he remembers too much when the strip of wood touches his fingers.

Ron comes only with deliveries, handfuls of letters and heavily-scented pies. Their words remain formal, and Hermione is full of small talk and politeness. Harry could mend the rift, he knows. He could blame it all on the locket and Voldemort, sweep it all away under that easy blanket of excuse. But Harry sees the flinch, the taut awareness that gathers in Hermione's shoulders when Ron is near. He watches as she stands perched for escape. He knows Ron never touched her, but the knowledge of it remains between them all.

The silence is too thick, the words too hardy to be spoken. Harry misses his friend, but it's the dimness of the feeling that leaves him truly saddened.

He finishes the floorboards before Halloween; the kitchen tile is re-grouted by Christmas. It is nearly spring, the air tasting of turned soil and promised sunshine, when he wakes up to realize that Hermione's lists of chores and duties, needs and necessities, is at last complete.

He finds her in the kitchen and watches as she attempts to write again and again, the blank parchment before her remaining untouched despite her efforts otherwise. He watches as her expression darkens, her lips twist. He recognizes the feeling caught there in her eyes and wonders how long Hermione has been in love.

He considers the options, and when he realizes that he is not on that list, no small part of him wavers in disappointment. He hesitates at the door; he thinks to ask about the parchment, about the quill that trembles in her hand. So much of her is unhappy; he sees equal parts guilt and longing. Again, he wonders who the person is.

Again, he thinks, _It is not me_.

She seems unsurprised when he reaches for the drawer that houses his wand, and when, an hour later, he returns with his trunk in tow and jacket on, she only smiles and hands him a key.

"It's your home, too, you know. Always."

Harry holds her briefly and tucks the memory of her warmth and scent carefully away. He'll see her again soon, he knows. But this closeness, this open companionship she's given him all these months- he knows, impossibly, that soon it'll belong to someone else.

"Write him," he tells her. "Whoever he is, invite him to dinner and try to be happy."

His Apparation is silent, and the tears Hermione cries in his wake are equally so.

_-eight-_


	9. Nine

_A/N: Thank you for the reviews!_

_Disclaimer: All JKR's._

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

* * *

_-nine-_

There is no time for guilt or loss; he is a single father now. He is mother and father, and his son is desperate for both. The days melt one after the other, passing with the rising of the sun and the breaking of the moon. Nappies, bottles, coos, and precious warmth guide each of his days, and in the heaviness of repeated task, slowly he remembers his wife.

Remus picks at the feelings his heart offers when he considers her, mousy hair and crooked smiles. His few memories of her true face are spare ones; he sees more of his wife in their son than in his dreams. He prods at his feelings, poking and testing the heat of them to weigh the damage her death has caused. Gratitude remains when he is finished, unstirred.

He holds his son close, listens to the baby's soft breath. Gratitude is a separate warmth, just as dear, and it is at night that he tells Dora, whispering mutely to her non-present ghost, of how much he owes to her.

Remus does not think of anything beyond Teddy and the full moon. He ignores the invites to holiday dinners, reunion gatherings, and memorial services. Harry writes him often, and he keeps the letters, unopened, in a box by the hearth. Members of the Order send owls with packed meals; Molly Weasley leaves baskets of steaming soups and warm bread every Sunday. She's learned not to knock; he does not answer.

Kingsley forces a visit on him, monthly, to watch as Remus downs his wolfsbane and locks himself in the basement, chains latched on his ankles and wrists. Remus never knows who stays with his son during his monthly _illness_, but he has his suspicions. He wonders if there's an agreed upon rotation, and then the traitorous part of his mind wonders if _she_ is part of it.

In those few moments before sleep fully finds him, when Teddy is quiet beside him in the crib, Remus wonders if she has slept there, restless between his sheets, bare skin wet in the heat of the too small apartment. He imagines her there, in his bed, laying where he laid, hair strewn across the pillow and impossibly tangled.

When he dreams on those nights when he thinks of her, gone are the nightmares of the last battle. Gone are the memories of his hate and anger. Gone even is his gratitude. When he dreams, he dreams of her limbs as a tangled puzzle against his own, her hair fragrant and heavy and thick in his fingers. He tastes her and knows her, and because it is his dream, she wants him there, needs him there. He feels no shame and no guilt, only that fullness that he's only ever sipped at when she chanced to be near.

When he wakes, he is spent and he is hollow. He kisses his son, sets the kettle, and presses his head against the roughness of the wall. The minutes melt into an hour, into a day, and once again the weeks become months, and Remus finally wakes to a morning that does not press him with apathy. He wakes and see the brightness of the morning, the flush blue of a ripe summer dawn.

He kisses his son, sets the kettle, and sits at the table with the box from the hearth. Nearly a year's worth of letters, and at the end of it, as the last one waits, its postmark only dated from the day before, he feels something more than just gratitude. Remus touches the parchment, holds it to his chest, and speaks to his son.

"We've been invited to a wedding, Teddy."

* * *

_-nine-_

* * *

Her dress is a pale green, with orange daisies stitched along the hem. She found the dress in the back of her mother's closet, hidden behind decades of barely worn skirts and blouses. Her mother had been more than pleased to give the forgotten gown to the sweet girl who kindly helped in the garden every other week. Hermione is a gifted witch, but human memory is slippery; it flickers and evolves, and what is lost cannot be remade. The twice monthly visits are enough, she has convinced herself; she sees more of her parents now than she ever had while at Hogwarts.

And as her father and mother often tell her, over glasses of cool lime water and cucumber sandwiches, they always longed for a daughter of their own. She is welcome to the dress and to the pears that grew in their backyard. She's welcome to everything, they always insist, and each time, she feels her heart twist a little more tightly.

A wind teases her hair, pulling at the clip that barely holds the busy strands back from her throat and cheeks. A Weasley jostles her elbow, offering up a brief apology with a freckled grin and spark of sadness. It's layered throughout, the sense of loss. The family dines and sups in celebration- another son is married and promises of grandchildren flit through the conversation. But the empty seat beside her remains, and Fred's ghost leaves his plate untouched and wine glass too full.

She hears the cry of welcome long before her eyes take in the full sight of him: hair stung with flashes of gray, eyes that wrinkle as he smiles and greets each of the Weasleys who take his hand and pull him near. He's dressed in blue, a dusky twilight shade that makes her breath rattle near her lips and draws a warmth to her center. Too quickly, Teddy is taken from him, passed from one eager embrace to the next.

"Congratulations Ronald," she hears him say, his voice lighter than she remembers. "And you, too, Luna."

Ron clutches his new wife's hand, and Luna kisses her new husband's cheek. There is a peacefulness to Ron now, a settled contentedness that Hermione had never seen in him before. She remembers when she once imagined herself as a Mrs. Weasley, long before she ever knew the strange choices the heart made in the mind's stead. In all of her imaginings, she never envisioned Ron quite like this: loose and happy, unburdened and pleased.

She is happy for her friend, happy for both of them. The wind pushes again, and her clip breaks.

Remus is there before she can turn, before she can prepare herself for the right words, the right reaction. She can only watch him as he kneels, retrieving the broken clip; she studies his scarred hands, the slight limp as he rises. She thinks of his apartment and his son, the smell of his bed and the scent of Teddy's downy hair. Remus seems to see some of this in her gaze, and when he hands her the clip, his fingers linger.

"You look lovely, Hermione," he tells her, an echo of the past- a past at once so ancient and so near that her nightmares and daydreams share it still.

She cannot manage the words; she nods and holds the clip ever tightly in her lap. He moves on to a seat further down the table, questions following him about Teddy, about life and the weather, a football match and then quidditch. Mundane words, the flotsam and jetsam of a life post-war, when rose trees and card games can be remembered again. Her eyes never leave him, not as he eats and smiles, brief chuckles following hushed words. She drowns in the fatigue near his mouth, the tension in his shoulders. She bobs and weaves, unmoving, as he comes to life once more- as _she _feels alive once more.

The music starts slowly, something nondescript and vague, with a muttering guitar and a charmed keyboard. The tune is not one she knows, yet she edges carefully through the dancing couples, minding their feet and elbows and soft sighs. Hermione finds him where she once found him, seated and playing with a ring on his finger.

"Professor, won't you dance with me?" she asks him, remembering her words from a summer so long before, back when she was young and hopeless, back when she was desperate and untried. She holds out her hand, and shudders when he takes it. Has he ever touched her like this, with purpose and intent? She cannot remember.

He is silent as he holds her, the occasional twirl and side-step reminding her of the audience that surrounds them. She wants only to huddle deep into his chest, disappear into his warmth and arms, and never step back. She trembles as the song ends, her arms and lips too stiff as he lets go of her. He smiles as he always does, a passive expression that she hates and loves both.

"Thank you for the dance," he says. "You've improved."

He's turned from her before she can muster up a response, his longer legs already retreating back to his chair, back to his world beyond hers. Hermione steals after him, no plan in place, no mind to what her pursuit hopes to achieve. She can only tug at his sleeve and grasp at his hand.

"Remus," and she feels the way his name makes him warm, feels the heat that pools beneath his skin when her lips drop the simple syllables. "_Remus_," she repeats, forcing him to turn and look at her. She waits until he reaches her gaze, waits until he drops the guard of formality he always forces when he's with her.

She waits, too, until his fingers comb between her own, and then she manages the words that have followed her for so long. "Remus. . . I missed you. I'm always _missing_ you."

He doesn't reply then, and not later when he gently extracts his hand from her own. He leaves her to stand, watching as he disappears back into the guests and well-wishers. The band begins another song, louder and heavier than the last, and in its volume, her quiet longing is made all the more silent.

_-nine-_


	10. Ten

_A/N: Hurray for reviews. It's so nice to have feedback. I'll have to admit, the whole RLHG pairing, while interesting, never really gripped me. It wasn't until I was rereading the books, and someone (Harry I believe) mistakes Tonks's patronus for a dog, in memory of Sirius, that sparked the thought: What if it was for Sirius?_

_Disclaimer: All JKR's._

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers _

* * *

_-ten-_

Dora's mother insists on the house, insists on the little yard with its warded fences and _notice-me-nots_ to nudge off curious neighbors. Remus resists the offer throughout the tour, ignoring the visions of possible futures the bright parlour and high windowed rooms grant. The brick embankment, the frosted panel doors- even the cellar that comes equipped with impervious cushions and an unbreakable lock; he shakes his head and repeats, again and again, _Thank you, but we're fine where we are._

Yellow tiles and a stretch of green counter ruin his resolve; he can barely speak, his breath stolen so quickly and finely with a brief glance at the sun-strewn kitchen. Too easily he can paint a table there, a crooked chair _just_ there, and between them both, the most important- the most critical. His dead wife's mother claps and smiles when he relents, and she promises him with kisses to his cheeks that all little boys need a yard to grow up happy.

The house, she promises, will mean happiness for both of them.

He is not the one to send the invitations; a lifetime's habits built on solitude are not so easily discarded. His new home, with its newly painted walls and unhindered windows, swell with the arrival of so many. He learns only a few bewildered minutes later that the house-warming party has been brought to him. Teddy laughs and points; Remus vanishes his irritation and lets the tide of voice and warmth rush through him.

Molly Weasley fills his yellow and green kitchen with the heavy scents of roast beef and rosemary; Kingsley pushes a glass of wine in his hands, the red liquid bitter and soft against his tongue. The taste lingers long after he's swallowed, and when he sees her arrive, tiptoeing past the parlour to stand near the fire, Remus drinks deeply.

Her dress is wrongly sized, the shoulders meant for a taller woman and the waist for someone larger. She smoothes down the edges, playing with an embroidered hem, and the look of brittle fondness she gives the cloth forces him forward.

"It's a pretty dress." She avoids his gaze and settles on a space beyond his shoulder. Her smile is forced and her eyes smudged with sleeplessness.

"One of my mother's; I couldn't quite get myself to adjust the size, so it's a bit. . ." Her fingers poke at the air, gestures that speak of wrongness and something more lonely.

"How are your parents?" he asks, pushing at the silence that sits between them too easily. He has vague notions of Muggle dentists and brand new house windows. His nights passing watch at the Granger house were spare, and his fruitless mission with the werewolves soon removed him altogether. It was all so long ago now, he realizes, so long before this _thing_ that rasped and pulled between them started.

"I'd rather not talk about them." Her eyes, warm and bright but missing something now- lacking that touch of happiness and belief he was used to finding in her gaze- flit briefly to his own, daring a further question.

"Then. . . what should we talk of?" He knows it an even worse question; he knows that it's dangerous and stupid and cruel for him to speak so easily to her, to act as if he had forgotten her confession at the wedding. Remus can only remind himself of the age and distance that separate them and insist that the longer he pretends to be unaffected, the more of a chance it might become real.

"We needn't talk about anything, Professor." He flinches at the word, hating the sound of it when his ears have now heard so much better. "I only came because Harry insisted, and I could hardly explain to him why I would want to avoid you."

She sighs, weariness and exhaustion heavy in the sound. "I appreciate the politeness, but it'd be better altogether if you just ignored me like before. It would be-" and she hesitates, chancing another glance of tired eyes against his own, "-_kinder_."

He feels the strum of it, the violent tide that sits beneath his skin only to burrow forward when the moon is full, when she slips away from him, pushing into a full kitchen and disappearing into the flow of body and sound that is now his house. He considers throwing them all out, his uninvited guests, tossing each and every soul out past the door and into the street. He can imagine better uses for his green counters than Molly Weasley's confections; his blood rushes, and with a brittle weakening, he admits to it.

He loves her; he has long loved her. It is not just the thrum and boil of animal lust and a pretty girl. It's her hair in the sunlight, and her eyelashes when she sneezes. It's the loneliness in her voice when she sits by the hearth and sighs over arithmantic equations. It's the warmth of her hand and true, unfettered frankness of her gaze. He loves her, undeniably and awfully.

He could step out now, call to her- grab her hand and touch her fingers, tell her the words she asked for when she confessed to missing him, to longing for him, because that's what she meant- too inexperienced, too unsure, whatever the excuse, he heard the real words behind the spoken:

_I love you. I always love you._

Remus flinches as he stands, unmoving. He watches as she leaves the kitchen, never glancing his way; he watches as she leaves, only her hand lingering on the door- only her feet showing the hesitance in her retreat. She seems to wait, for a brief moment, as if knowing of his unspoken request.

He waits too long, guilt and excuse and self-recrimination all heavy anchors on his legs, and the door closes behind her. In the sea of warmth, sound and laughter, he is an island, deaf and cold.

* * *

_-ten-_

* * *

He is four years old today; he counts well past it, beyond his fingers and toes and long into freckles and eyelashes. He counts now the candles that dot his birthday cake, and smiles when he finishes. Four is more than three, but so very less than eleven, and it is not until then that he can go to the school his mother once went to.

His father, too, once went there.

Teddy speaks very little, and he knows this frightens his father. He knows the expression too well; he feels it on his face when he's alone at night, in his room with only the flickering faerie light to protect him. His father promises that there is nothing beneath the bed or in the closet to hurt him, but Teddy knows that there are worse things than the creatures under the bed.

He does not know the words, but Teddy knows the feeling of it. They are the things of storms in the morning and clattering winds. Too hot milk and bitter medicine. Teddy sleeps with his bear on those nights, when the creature in the closet creeps too closely- when the boogie beneath the bed bites too sharply.

Teddy heard his father cry one night, but he did not learn the reason. That feeling too, he does not know the name for, but he knows it is like soap in his eyes or a splinter in his finger.

He eats his cake carefully, counting the bites and smiling when others eat, too. Victoire and Uncle Harry, Gran and Miss Fleur. Even Miss Mione, although she does not smile and eat like the others do. He sees her lips curve, just like they're meant to, but he knows it's not the same. It's like the one door that doesn't close and the sink that drips. Teddy does know the words, but he knows it's wrong.

On the days his dad leaves on his trips, Miss Mione sometimes stays. He knows her smile then, the morning sunshine and bright yellow of it. She holds him and pets him, reads and laughs with him. He beats the eggs for the breakfast and once even cracks the egg without her hand to guide him. She rocks with him near the fire, and when he sleeps, on those nights, there is nothing in the closet or under the bed. His bear is held for softness only, not protection.

Teddy knows Miss Mione's smile, and this strange face she makes now is not it.

It is later, when the cake is finished and his presents opened, when his father thinks him asleep up the stair, Teddy sneaks back down and listens by the kitchen. Miss Mione is still there, and his father still awake.

"I'm fine to Apparate, Professor. I barely touched the wine." Teddy doesn't understand this word Miss Mione uses, this _professor_. It's the name she gives his father, and she's the only one to use it.

"You're welcome to the guest room. It's clean, I promise." His father seems to laugh, but Teddy does not understand the joke. Miss Mione says nothing at all.

Teddy kneels by the frame, careful to peak only through the crack between wall and door. The fire burns soundlessly, the wood and flame quiet in their conversation. Miss Mione told him once that if he listened carefully, he could learn a great secret from the fire. He listens now, but only his father speaks.

"It would be safer. At least let me call you a cab-"

"Safer? Since when has my safety been a consideration of yours?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I've always considered you with the same care as Harry-"

Now Miss Mione laughs, but Teddy knows the sound is wrong. It's missing her usual sunshine yellow, and he only feels the darkness of it, deep and black and not at all like mornings.

"Somehow, I doubt that. It doesn't matter now anyway. I think it's safe to just continue as we are; I'll be polite at the parties, and you can pretend that I'm still some wayward student. Let's keep the sham of _parental _considerations alone."

Teddy squints more carefully, his father is in the fire's shadow and he cannot see his face. Miss Mione, too, is caught in the shadow, but the fire is brighter there and he sees her hair and frowning mouth. He knows she is sad, but he does not know the reason.

"Then why do you continue to come here?"

"I don't know what you mean-"

"During the full moon, I know it's you who stays with Teddy. It might be Harry or Kingsley who locks me in, but it's you who sits and stays with Teddy. It's you who leaves him happy and talking. Did you know that- that he only speaks after you've come to stay? I've almost reached the point where I welcome the changing, the awful breaking of it, because it means you've been here and Teddy is speaking again."

Miss Mione is quiet, and Teddy resists his yawns. He barely knows the things his father says, he barely understands, but there's color and movement in the words. He can see the shape of it, like one of the ocean waves at Victoire's house, huge and blue and topped by foamy white.

"I know that you stay here, every time. I can smell you in the kitchen, in my bed. For days after, my sheets and pillow are filled with you."

The wave crests, curling and twisting and gaining in curve.

"Why do you do it, Hermione? Why do you come? Even though I told you- even though I explained-"

"And what of it? So what if I'm pathetic and witless enough to come to the house of a man who doesn't want me, who's made it painfully obvious that he does not want me. So what if I'm happy with spending a few days a month with his son. I know Teddy's not mine, if that's what you're worried about. I know he belongs to you and Tonks- I _know_. She was my friend, too. So why can't you just leave it alone? Just go back to ignoring me and leave it alone."

Teddy cringes as the words gather too closely, the wave breaking too early. The colors are leaving, bleeding silently back into the blackness of before. He wishes for his bear, he wishes for his father.

"I've never ignored you, Hermione."

Teddy holds himself and watches; the fire shifts and light draws the shadows away. His father is closer now, his hands reaching for Miss Mione's hair, his fingers near her chin. Teddy wonders if his father likes to touch Miss Mione's hair, if he, too, likes to wrap the strands around his fingers.

Miss Mione sighs, the sound full of color. "You're not allowed to do this to me again. I won't take your- your _ambiguity_. I'm not your student to care after, or some surrogate niece or god-daughter that needs tending. You can't hide behind that and claim that this- _this_ feeling between us is something familial or brotherly."

Teddy watches as Miss Mione pulls away from his father's hands, as she steps away from the fire and the brightness. She murmurs something, too soft to hear, but Teddy sees the impact of it as his father staggers. The crack of Miss Mione's vanishing is too loud, and Teddy cringes, holding his ears. His father cringes, too, staring into the space where she stood. Teddy wants to ask him what she said.

Teddy might not know the words, might not know their meaning, but he understands. He sees the shape of them in his father's downturned shoulders and the awful loneliness that sits now on his father's back. Teddy understands that whatever words Miss Mione used, they meant good-bye.

When Teddy returns to his bed, the closet threatens and the wretch under the bed goans. He grips his bear, but he is not frightened by the monsters that gather. He knows there are worse things than the creatures in his room in the night. There are storms in the morning and clattering winds. The burn of too hot milk; the swallow of bitter medicine.

There is the absence of a person, the loss of a warmth. Teddy knows this properly before the month is over, and he learns the word for it too easily:

_Missed_.

_-ten-_


	11. Eleven

_A/N: A final chapter, with an epilogue (of sorts) tomorrow. A more extensive author's note will follow then, as well. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed thus far! It's so nice to read the comments._

_Warning: This chapter, while not overly specific, nevertheless contains mature content._

_Disclaimer: JKR's; not mine._

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

* * *

_-eleven-_

She is not running away; no one can ever accuse Hermione Granger of running away. A tactical retreat, a planned sojourn- however one might phrase it, this packing of bags and closing of accounts, this covering of furniture and warding of windows: this is not retreat.

She needs distance and separation; time, she has given far too much of. Years of her life now, spent in stasis, stuck stagnant in stupid waiting and hoping. Hermione is too clever for such silliness, too confident for such wilted tiptoeing. She survived war and battles, near starvation and an evil wizard; surely she can survive heartache.

Surely she can survive rejection.

She removes the light bulbs by hand, saving her wand for more practical things. One by one, she unscrews them; one by one, she places them in a clearly labeled box. Her mother once taught her this, to save on electricity and to prevent possible fires. Her cottage is all enchantments and charms, there's no fear of a short circuit or blown fuse here. Still, she removes the bulbs and counts them, repeating her convictions with each turn.

_I love him._

_I love his son._

_He does not want me._

_I'm too young to be this tired._

She folds the quilts next, tucking corners and forcing the edges flush. She can't remember where Harry found them, if they were made by hand or machine. The brightly colored squares cheered her in the evenings and warmed her in the winter; one now sits on Teddy's bed. Her heart twists to know that he sleeps with her warmth around him.

It was foolish, she knows, to put herself in that position. She could have made up excuses, reasons- anything, even the truth- to get out of the babysitting rotation. At first, she told herself there was a chance, given time, that Remus might grow fond of her, maybe even start to care beyond his normal diffident formality.

And then after, past the wedding and that awful party, she told herself that it was for Teddy. He was just a baby still, and of the six who volunteered to care for the child during the full moon, she was the one closest in age and feeling to Tonks. They told her, Andromeda and the others, that Teddy needed something resembling his mother. Just for a little while, they told her, just until he was old enough to understand.

Hermione understood a great many things by the time she was four; she understood loss and loneliness. She understood arguments and rejection. She even knew some of the words for them, and her precocious tongue soon named them all. He was old enough now to not need her; it wasn't fair to her heart and soon, she knew, he would not remember much of her at all.

Children's memories are frail and distracted; he might miss her for a while, but soon Teddy would forget.

She is unaware of her tears, of the silent gasps that slip past her lips until, uninvited yet always wanted, Remus is beside her, speaking and recriminating.

"You accused me once of cruelty- what you're doing now is far worse. Running away- leaving behind that poor child! Teddy loves you, he asks about you, worrying that you're sick or ill, hurt or that you hate him. This isn't the Hermione Granger I know."

She bites down on her cheek, the pain of it freeing her from her silence. The guilt is only worsened, but she was always prepared for that. She knew when she first pulled out her trunk that the tightness in her chest, the buzzing near her eyes would only worsen.

"He'll get over it," she says coolly, enjoying for a moment the flash of surprise that sweeps through her former professor's features. "He's a kid, they always get over it."

"What's wrong with you?" He is all puzzlement and frustration; his hands fisting and his breath short.

She wipes her cheeks and matches his gaze. "A very stupid question, Professor. As if you don't know- as if you're ignorant. I love you, you stupid man. I told you that night- I've told you so many times now. I love you, I can't remember when I haven't loved you. And I know that it's not reciprocated, so finally-" She inhales deeply, something freeing in her, something loosening in her stomach. Some awful knot that has twisted and twirled and tormented for so long- it cracks and breaks and finally, she thinks she can breath. "- finally, I'm going to stop."

She doesn't wait for a response, too tired and impatient to finally get on with her life, to finally find something or someone that might be brave enough and love her enough to finally respond. "I know that there was once something, or at least I thought there was- from you. I might not be as old as you, Professor, but I know what it means when a man looks at you and imagines something else. So maybe it was just lust; maybe you're just a dirty old man who saw a young woman with a crush and let his fantasies get away from him.

"Maybe you were just bad at hiding it and I mistook that look, that expression for something more than a quick jerk in the sheets." Hermione savors the callous wording, the blatant boldness of her statements; each sentence hits him squarely. She is grown up and capable of such things now. He steps back with each unaccusing accusation. She doesn't question her lack of timidity; she speaks of things she knows on an academic level, barely tasted anecdotally. Her few attempts at intimacy had taken too much alcohol and too little feeling to pull off.

It had only been sex, those few times in the dark; it had only been an attempt at convincing herself otherwise.

"What? Too close to the mark?" She steps toward him, forcing him to acknowledge her- to say something, to refuse or agree- anything if it meant something other his constant denial, his stubborn refusal to admit to what sat between them. "How did I call you in your dreams, Professor? Was it Professor Lupin while wearing my old uniform? Or did I use your name? After all, you were always insisting on it."

She's crying again and now she notices, hating the weakness of the tears. She's not running away; she's not driving him away. It's all truth and well deserved, she insists. It might sound cruel, it might sound forced- but it's deserved. Even if she is only a wet dream to him, some passing carnal desire, then at least it is something and not this non-existence he insists on.

She watches him, watches as he slowly regains his breathing, as he re-opens his eyes and chases away whatever awful thoughts whisper to him. She flinches when he reaches for her, not fearing a blow but thinking herself deserving all the same. His hands are warm, she realizes as he wipes gently at her cheeks.

"I like the way it sounds, when you say it. I like the way your mouth moves, the way your lips shape the word when you say it. And yes," he pulls her against him, gently as always but with decision.

His fingers move to her hair, his lips close to her ear. She can feel the faint touch of them against her skin as he speaks; she barely follows the words, the nearness of him is too much, after so much distance- after so much waiting. "I dreamt of you. When it was wrong, when I was married and with a child on the way. Even after she died and I tried to bury myself in that awful apartment, I dreamt of you. What your mouth might do on my skin, how you'd feel against my fingers. If you'd cry my name when you came- if you'd shudder and moan, how your skin might flush. I imagined myself inside you, and each time, it was good, it was _good_."

She tries to pull away; Hermione wanted this- but not this. Not this truth. She did not think it possible, not truly. This is worse, so much worse. Better to have been ignored- to have been thought a silly little girl than this! But he is stronger, and he does not let her go.

"I dreamt other things, too. Softer and dearer things; I imagined you reading in our kitchen. I imagined waking you with breakfast in bed, picnics in some unknown park. Walks with Teddy after the rain, your hand in mine. Another child, even. One with your hair and your smile, always with more of you than me. I dreamt of holidays and full supper tables, the sound of a shower in the morning, and a quiet read when it stormed. So much mundanity in what I dreamed- you called me cruel, Hermione. My dreams were crueler."

Hermione cannot breath and when she strikes at him, when she hits his chest and kicks with her feet, it's to escape. She is running away because it is too much, this too late confession. After so long- after so many nights and days convinced that she was weak and silly, so very stupid and wrong. And he had dreamt it, too; he had imagined it, too. These things she carries in her heart- these cruel pictures she treasures as hope.

"Hermione, _Hermione- _please, listen. You should leave, you should get away. It's not fair or right to expect you to stay with me. I'm not a good man; I'm weak and selfish. I've already been the ruin of one woman, and I can't do the same to you. But you have to know, you were never ignored- you were never _not_ noticed.

"I've always noticed."

She draws on his robes, hating the color of them, hating the awful grayness of them. She pulls him down to her, down to her gaze. She wants him to see, she wants him to understand. She kisses him and she thinks, _This is only fair_.

* * *

_-eleven-_

* * *

Remus tries to not think of how it feels to have her this close against him, to have the heady scent of her skin and hair fill his breath. He memorizes the feel of it, the texture of her form and warmth; he knows that his dreams of her will only worsen, only deepen. No guilt attaches itself in that realization; she knows now, after all. She knows the truth of it.

How awful and good it felt to hear her say the words he most feared. How free it made him to know that he needn't hide it. Her anger and her desperate disgust; he had feared them for so long, and now, with it all in the sunshine open, he can breath again.

He tells her all of it, each terrible detail uncoiling the heaviness in his chest and heart. Now she knows; now she can truly leave. The weakness that brought him to her house, the weakness that allowed his resolve to waiver- now he has no choice. He has ruined it all; he almost smiles, the relief overwhelming.

"_I've always noticed."_

Her hands tangle themselves against his chest, his robes caught between her fingers. She is pulling on the fabric, dragging him toward her, and with eyes wide and frank with something hard and breaking, she kisses him. There's nothing of softness or warmth in the touch, she nips and bites, dragging her teeth against his lips. He tries to ignore the taste of her, he tries to draw away, but her tongue finds him, nimble and quick, and he's lost then.

He drowns and forgets breath and sun and life; he feels only her, and it's more than dream or fantasy. It's truth and she sighs into his mouth- speaks his name against his lips.

His hands find the edge of her sweater, the stretch of warm skin beneath it. She moans as his fingers tease the cotton of her bra, the soft swell of her breasts. He feels her reach for his trousers and in frustration settle for the hot ache of his erection. He nearly stops at her touch, he nearly pulls away. But she insists with her lips, she insists with the sounds of his name and the panting of her breath.

His hands search and roam, seek and discover. He learns the sound of her voice when he first enters her; he learns the feel of her mouth when she bites into his shoulder, when he stretches her tight walls and clutching dampness. She shudders and trembles, and when he returns to himself, when it's only her on the hard floor, a shaking softness of need and voice, he confesses.

"I'm a liar," he tells her, each thrust desperate and aching. She arches against him, eyes closed and cheeks flushed. "I'm a coward and a cheat."

"Remus," she whispers, her nails sharp on his back. "_Remus_, I don't ca-"

He doesn't let her finish, he stops her words with his mouth, feeling the tightening of her around him, and it's a swell of darkness and release, a pulsing warmth and heaviness that frees itself from him. She cries against him, a tangle of limb and breath. Remus lifts himself only long enough to take her in, the sight of her beneath him, ruined and smudged and so very lovely in her exhaustion. He lifts her against him, cradling her head and hair, arms and body against his own.

"This is all I am," he tells her. "You deserve more. I'm too selfish to force it now, but what I said before is true. It's not fair-"

"I don't care, you stupid man. I don't care about any of it. Just tell me you love me, say it and I'll stay. I'll come home with you and you'll never get rid of me." She touches his cheeks, combs back his hair. "No more lying, no more self-inflicted guilt. Remus, just tell me."

He considers otherwise, the second of thought exposing a vision of empty years. He could leave her now, claim a physical satisfaction, and spend a lifetime having tasted but never again. He thinks of his curse and his child; he thinks of his dead wife and her knowing eyes. He thinks of Hermione and her clever mouth, her warm heart and her soft voice.

He tries to think of a life without her now; he tries to draw up the strength-

"I love you," he tells her. "I've always loved you."

Remus Lupin is weak; he is not an island, and she gives him such better shores.

_-eleven-_


	12. Epilogue

_A/N: Thank you for all of the support for this story. With the below, it is now complete. Please, read and review and let me know what you think!_

_Disclaimer: All JKR's._

* * *

**Missed**

_by: carpetfibers_

* * *

_-epilogue-_

Teddy is seven when his father explains that he is to get a new mother. His own mum is dead, a hero in heaven who watches him and loves him. Teddy stumbles when he greets Miss Mione, dressed all in white with lace and flowers and brilliant yellow surrounding her; his hair changes to green when she kisses his cheek and explains that he needn't call her mother.

"I'm your Hermione," she tells him. "I'll always be your Hermione."

He can say the name now, and she smiles when he manages it. His cheeks puff pink with satisfaction and he squawks like a duck when she laughs. But he knows she loves it best when he leaves his face alone; she combs his hair and touches his cheeks when it's his brown hair and blue eyes that meet her.

"Be whoever you want with the rest of the world," she tells him at night, when she's finished reading and he's nearly asleep, "but with your father and me, just be Teddy."

Teddy is happy to have his Hermione; he has a dad and a mum, but unlike other little boys, he has a Hermione.

* * *

_-epilogue-_

* * *

Teddy is newly eleven when his letter arrives. The owl is a dark brown, but spurts of shocking blue escape from its wings when it sweeps down to him. The blue changes to a dark purple when he gives the owl its treat. Teddy opens the letter and reads carefully.

He knew it would come; Hermione and dad had promised him every birthday before that it would come. But Teddy had doubts; his magic is so different from Victoire and little James and Albus. Toys dance and dishes break; candles spit out pink flames and wallpaper rips from the wall. But Teddy can only make different faces. Surely letters aren't sent just for that.

Two days later, he is taken for his first wand. When it takes six different tries to find the right one, he nearly cries. When it takes two more after that, despair finds him. When at last, the stretch of oak and dragon heartstring comes to his hand, Teddy feels the rightness of it. It pulses through him once, twice and again.

This is his wand; it is to Hermione he turns first.

"Dragon heartstring, just like mine," she tells him. He hugs her and points his wand.

"Teach me a spell, Hermione," he begs.

She laughs, bright yellow and lovely orange threading it. "Your dad's the teacher, not me. Let's go home and share the good news."

But it's Hermione who does, eventually, teach him his first spell. And when he stumbles over it, sending all of his clothes racing not just from his closet, but from under the bed and out in the hall, it is Hermione who consoles him.

"Your mum had a hard time with that one, too."

Teddy feels the blue and green fall over him, an early dawn sky and late summer grass. Another thing to connect him to his mother. He grips his wand tightly. "Let's try again."

* * *

_-epilogue-_

* * *

Teddy is fourteen when he slams his bedroom door, anger boiling through him. _It's not fair_, he repeats to himself. Why shouldn't he be allowed to stay with his Uncle Harry? Why shouldn't he be allowed? What were chores compared to a week-end of quidditch and time in the garden? Uncle Harry had promised to show him his newest edition to the garden, some unknown tropical flower whose roots cured insomnia and whose leaves helped with fatigue. Just because he hadn't got around yet to finishing the dishes shouldn't mean he get grounded!

What was the point of being a wizard if you couldn't use a spell or two to make life easier?

"Teddy, open the door."

It's _her_, and Teddy waits until she asks a third time before complying. She stands there, drained and covered in a sticky gray. He shoves the guilty feeling that creeps over him when he realizes how tired she is; he pushes the emotion away and reminds himself that she's not his mother. She's just _Hermione_, and what did that mean anyway?

Teddy reminds her of this, as well, interrupting her halfway through her instructions. "You're not my mum, so quit acting like it."

He chose the right words- he knows so many now. And instantly, he wishes he didn't. He remembers when he was little, and words came to him so slowly. He remembers in that second, as her face crumbles and she leaves his doorway to hide elsewhere, how she would read to him and sing to him, never minding that he would never reply. She would listen to him, even when he could not speak, and the gray that coats her now- the gray that she drowns in, it deepens to an awful black.

Teddy wants to apologize immediately; he wants to swallow back the terrible words. But he's stubborn, and he's ashamed. He waits until he can hear his father murmuring through the walls and then sneaks down the stair. The barely finished dinner and unwashed dishes still wait in the kitchen.

He rolls up his sleeves and cleans. He knows so many words now, but the feeling that batters him now- he only knows the color of it. And he hates it thoroughly.

* * *

_-epilogue-_

* * *

Teddy is eighteen and newly graduated. An apprenticeship has been offered, a chance to study for three years with the very best. He wonders briefly if his mum in heaven liked plants as much as he does. He never thought to ask anyone, and when his father and Hermione greet him with hugs and congratulations, he makes note to ask then.

It's not surprising that it's Hermione who knows and not his father. Teddy has learned this through the years, and he is adult enough now to understand. A second wife and fill-in mother- Hermione is both, and he knows enough to be grateful.

"She couldn't cook, but she kept a small spice garden at the Weasley's. Your Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur moved it to Shell Cottage when the war started, and your mum tended to it all while she was pregnant with you. I think it was basil, or maybe rosemary, but there was some spice or herb that she loved to sniff at. Her eyes always turned a deep green when she did."

Teddy pays more attention to the expression on his father's face as she speaks than the actual words. He wonders why his father is surprised anymore; he wonders if his father knows how easily his features are read. Teddy has known for so long now, but this is what love looks like.

This expression- this turn of the eyes and curve of the lips- this is what love is. A hint of deep red with an ocean of still, cool blue.

Teddy could be an Auror like his mum was, he knows; metamorphagi are rare enough to be in high demand. But he is enough like his father to not want the fight and battle of the job. He longs for quiet hours spent in study, his hands deep in the dirt. He's spent years watching Hermione read the thick texts that she loves, and he knows the feeling of it.

His books are plants; he hopes they are proud of him.

* * *

_-epilogue-_

* * *

Teddy is twenty-three when his heart is broken. Victoire leaves him quietly and without passion. Her reasons are new to him, but old to her. He does not know how long she has been sure of it, the pointlessness of a continued future with him; he only knows that when she leaves, she does not look back.

He sits in his cold flat for an hour before he escapes back to his childhood home, back to the yellow and green kitchen, and the woman who sits at the table, reading as he knew she would. Her hair is lighter now, a splash of gray touching it. He can find wrinkles near her eyes, and there's a plump softness to her when he reaches for the embrace she so willingly offers.

She holds him as he cries, rubs his back as he says nothing but snivels into her shoulder. He hears her soft whispers of comfort, meaningless repeats of _darling boy, my dear boy, my dear sweet boy_. He wonders if his mum would have held him like this; he wonders if a mother's embrace is any different from this.

He thinks, as she holds him and lets him cry, that even though she told him so many years ago that she was only his Hermione, she has always been more. Teddy is so very lucky, he realizes; most boys only get one mother.

_I_, he realizes, _was given two._

* * *

_-epilogue-_

* * *

Teddy is twenty-seven when he is offered the post at Hogwarts. Professor Sprout longs to retire, and Neville Longbottom turns down the position. When it comes to Teddy, he does not hesitate. He spends a summer learning class rotations and lesson plans; he memorizes his first day speeches. He knows a handful of the students, but it's been years since he's seen his Uncle Harry's children, and Victoire's sisters still ignore him.

He is surprised when a student lingers after class, the first week, her red hair and dark brown eyes distantly familiar. She speaks briefly, welcoming him, and grins up at him when he drops his stack of papers. When her fingers brush his, he feels the brief burst of her pulse. He doesn't understand what courses through him when she leaves.

Teddy has met her before; he held her as a baby and went to at least one or two of her childhood birthdays. He cannot place the strange feeling that heats him now, in her absence. He only knows that she is young, and he is her professor.

_Lily_, he repeats to himself. _Lily Potter_.

When he sleeps that night, he dreams, and in the morning, he begins to understand. It is the ocean at dusk; it is the sun at dawn. Teddy might not know the word for it- not yet- but he understands.

He is his father's son, and he watches the world now in flashes of red and a deep, still blue.

_-epilogue-_

* * *

_A/N: So I started this story roughly around a year ago, writing pieces of it here and there. Originally I had planned to end it after the final battle, with both Remus and Tonks having died, as per canon, and an epilogue with Hermione stepping up to care for Teddy. There was an additional chapter, now removed, that dealt more directly with the feelings between Remus and Hermione._

_But I had always hated how JKR felt the need to re-create Harry's circumstances with Teddy. She didn't have to kill both parents; and so I decided, neither did I!_

_I want to thank the people who reviewed, favorited, and followed. It's nice to get my toe back in the fanfiction door- it had been a while. For those who care, the DAM sequel is actually still being worked on. Unlike in the past, I'm trying to only post a story once it's completed on my end. I'm roughly half way through the sequel, so maybe sometime next year._


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